Illinois shutters nation's last prison roundhouse

Updated 5:50 pm, Thursday, December 1, 2016

CREST HILL, Ill. (AP) — Illinois has shuttered the nation's last prison roundhouse, a circular lockup with a guard tower in the middle that critics say created an especially harsh environment for inmates.

The state Department of Corrections began transferring the last prisoners from the maximum-security F House at Stateville to other locations on Oct. 26, the Chicago Sun-Times reported (http://bit.ly/2gN7pAZ ). The last 36 inmates were moved out Wednesday.

Closing the unit, which was built in 1922, will allow the department to divert $10.3 million in maintenance costs into other housing units and programs, officials said.

The John Howard Association, a prison watchdog group, said the outdated roundhouse design intensified the already visually chaotic and distressing auditory experience prison often causes.

In October, Gov. Bruce Rauner wrote an op-ed for the Chicago Sun-Times in which he announced his plans to overhaul the state's criminal justice system. He called the correctional center one of the state's oldest and most costly prison housing units.